Masahiro Tanaka Struggles in an Ominous Sign for the Yankees

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Mookie Betts, one of the Red Sox’ rising stars, led the team with nine home runs entering Tuesday. Boston, traditionally a power-hitting club, ranked last in homers in the American League.CreditCreditPatrick Semansky/Associated Press

The promise of summer heat is a beacon for teams without power. They can always tell themselves that the home runs will fly just as soon as this cold, rotten weather disappears.

On Tuesday at Yankee Stadium, a more convincing reason for hope emerged for the Boston Red Sox: Masahiro Tanaka, the nominal ace of the Yankees. In a raw, misty Bronx drizzle, Tanaka was just the cure for the team with the fewest home runs in the American League.

The Red Sox belted three homers off Tanaka in their 5-4 victory, moving to within a game of the Yankees for first place in the A.L. East. Tanaka lasted just five innings, and his earned run average swelled to 6.55. He has given up 17 homers in 12 uneven starts.

Tanaka’s struggles may force the Yankees to confront their rotation for the first time this season. They have used only five starters, a blessing for any team in this era of fragile pitching arms. Even if Tanaka is healthy — as the Yankees insist — he has been so confounding that he could soon need a break. Of his last five starts, four have been duds.

General Manager Brian Cashman has focused on deepening the Yankees’ pool of talent, not siphoning from it to win today. But if the Red Sox stay close or creep ahead, the Yankees may need to approach the trade market more aggressively to hang with their rivals at the top of the standings.

For a decade, from 1998 through 2007, the Yankees and the Red Sox were almost guaranteed to own the top two spots in the division. In all but one of those seasons, those two teams finished first or second in the A.L. East, in some order.

The last decade has been much more equitable. Every A.L. East team has made multiple trips to the playoffs, and the Yankees and the Red Sox have held the top spots just once, in 2009. Yet there they were on Tuesday, as the Red Sox made their first appearance of the season in the Bronx, atop the standings again.

Hello, old friend, it’s really good to see you once again.

“The fact that the standings are what they are now, with a major change to the names on each roster, this should be a fun series — teams that are now being impacted greatly by young players,” Red Sox Manager John Farrell said before the game. “We’ve gone through that a couple of years ago as we’ve transitioned, and it’s happened quick here in New York.”

The old standbys are almost all gone; Tuesday was the first time the Red Sox have played at the new Yankee Stadium without David Ortiz on the team. Ortiz is happily retired now, and the Red Sox will raise his No. 34 to the right-field awning at Fenway Park later this month.

That ceremony was planned. The retirement of their overall power was not. The Red Sox ranked last in the A.L. in homers before Tuesday’s game, with 53. The Yankees were second with 84, behind Houston’s 92. While the Yankees’ Aaron Judge led the majors in homers, with 18, Mookie Betts led Boston with half as many.

In the fourth inning against Tanaka, though, the cleanup hitter Mitch Moreland drilled a hanging slider for his seventh homer. Hanley Ramirez followed by lashing a flat two-seamer for his eighth. In the fifth, Andrew Benintendi pounded another lifeless fastball deep into the second deck. He now has eight homers.

Home runs blazed an easier path to victory, but the Red Sox have usually managed, anyway. At 32-25, they trail only the Astros and the Yankees for the A.L.’s best record, and they were the only team in the majors averaging four pitches per plate appearance entering Tuesday’s games.

In other words, they know what they do well, and stick with it. While so many hitters across baseball are trying to raise the launch angle of their swings — to drive balls hard over the infield shift and into gaps and bleachers — the Red Sox are different.

“I tell you the one thing that we don’t preach,” Farrell said. “I hear about creating this kind of loft — I think what we try to do is take what is the natural swing of a given hitter and say, how does he put his best swing on the baseball? Our approach to developing hitters has always been understanding the strike zone, having an all-field approach, being a more complete hitter versus one that’s going to look to put the ball in the air.”

Before Tuesday, the Red Sox led the league in doubles (105), trailed only Houston and the Yankees in on-base percentage (.340), and trailed only those teams and Detroit in runs per game (4.84). No one is likely to match Ortiz’s 38-homer goodbye, but the Red Sox are deep enough, as an offense and a team, to challenge or overtake the Yankees.

Dave Dombrowski, Boston’s president for baseball operations, said in a text message that three-run homers were always welcome. But he said they were not the priority.

“I do not believe we need to hit more home runs,” Dombrowski said. “Have never emphasized having to hit a home run. Need to get more doubles and hits with men on base. We have been doing that more often lately.”

That should worry the Yankees. The Red Sox may only get a few more games against Tanaka, but either way, they can hit. And the weather should turn any day now.

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page B9 of the New York edition with the headline: A Nominal Ace Struggles in an Ominous Sign for the Yankees. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe